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Jul 31, 2015 | FANTASTIC FOUR Original Motion Picture Soundtrack Available Digitally on July 31 and on CD on August 14 Featuring Original Score by Marco Beltrami and Philip Glass

Jul 31, 2015

NEW YORK, July 31, 2015 /PRNewswire/ -- Sony Music announces the release of THE FANTASTIC FOUR (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack) featuring the music of Marco Beltrami and Philip Glass. The soundtrack will be released digitally on July 31 and on CD on August 14.

About FANTASTIC FOUR:From acclaimed director Josh Trank ("Chronicle"), and screenwriters Jeremy Slater and Simon Kinberg ("X-Men: First Class," X-Men; Days of Future Past", "Sherlock Holmes"), FANTASTIC FOUR is a contemporary re-imagining of Marvel's first, and longest-running superhero team. Based on the Marvel comic written by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby, the film follows four young outsiders who teleport to an alternate and dangerous universe that alters their physical form in shocking ways. Their lives irrevocably upended, the team must learn to harness their daunting new abilities and work together to save Earth from a former friend turned enemy. The film stars Miles Teller as Reed Richards, Kate Mara as Susan Storm, Michael B. Jordan as Johnny Storm, Jamie Bell as Ben Grimm, and Toby Kebbell as Victor von Doom.

About the composers:

Marco BeltramiBeltrami is best known for finding a unique approach to scoring in each of his films. For the film "Scream", he threw away conventional horror music cliches and instead called upon his concert music roots to explore a new sonic landscape. For "The Homesman" Beltrami constructed his own instruments that would meld the archaic and new. The creations were as tiny as a refitted lap steel guitar to giant, cross-ranch cables that could pick up wind and translate it into a haunting glow. Subsequently, his resume has expanded to include films ranging from epic drama to dark comedy. Beltrami has been nominated twice for Academy Awards for Best Score ("3:10 to Yuma" (2007) and "The Hurt Locker" (2008)).

Philip GlassIn the past 25 years, Glass has composed more than twenty eight operas, ten symphonies, as well as concertos for piano, violin, cello, timpani, saxophone quartet and orchestra, and a growing body of work for solo piano and organ and numerous soundtracks to films. By simultaneously winning a wide, multi-generational audience in the opera house, the concert hall, the dance world, in film and in popular music, Glass has had an extraordinary impact upon the musical and intellectual life of his times. Three of Glass's previous film scores have been nominated for Academy Awards: "Kundun" (1997), "The Hours" (2002) and "Notes On A Scandal" (2006). In 1999, he won the Golden Globe for his soundtrack to "The Truman Show".

NEW YORK, July 31, 2015 /PRNewswire/ -- Columbia Records – The first new album in decades from legendary vocalist Darlene Love, Introducing Darlene Love, is available for pre-order today at iTunes, Google Play, and Amazon. Produced and arranged by artist/producer/E Street Band great Stevie Van Zandt, the album is comprised of all new recordings and features never-before-heard and classic songs from a superstar cast of songwriters eager to showcase one of the most seminal voices in music history. Fans who pre-order the album will receive the Elvis Costello-penned first single "Forbidden Nights" as an instant grat track.

Elvis Costello and Bruce Springsteen contribute two tracks each to the 14-song album (released on Van Zandt's Wicked Cool label in partnership with Columbia Records - see full tracklist below) with Stevie Van Zandt penning three songs. Other writers include Jim Webb, Linda Perry, Desmond Child, Joan Jett, longtime songwriting team Barry Mann and Cynthia Weil, and Michael Des Barres, and more.

The captivating Love brings her iconic vocal delivery to each song, including "Night Closing In" (Bruce Springsteen,) "Still To Soon To Know" (Elvis Costello),"Love Kept Us Foolin' Around" (Linda Perry), "Who Under Heaven" (Jimmy Webb), "River Deep, Mountain High" (Phil Spector/Jeff Barry/Ellie Greenwich), and "Sweet Freedom" (Barry Man/Cynthia Weil), among others. Inducted in to the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame in 2011, the New York Times has called the singer "a thunderbolt voice embedded in the history of rock n' roll…" and Rolling Stone praised her trademark vocal style as "a rare instrument sturdy enough to vault over Phil Spector's 'Wall of Sound.'"

Love's five-decade career spans some of the greatest signature moments in music, with the Los Angeles native nurturing her talent early as a member of the Blossoms, a local trio who began their career providing backup vocals for artists such as Sam Cooke and Bobbie Day. The Blossoms also were featured as part of the house band for the popular '60s music show Shindig, backing up many of the performers who appeared on the series. Love would go on to become one of the most sought-after singers in music history, recording with Elvis Presley, Frank Sinatra, The Beach Boys, Dionne Warwick, The Righteous Brothers, Tom Jones, and dozens of other vocal giants throughout her career. Her early work with pioneering producer Phil Spector on songs such as the trailblazing "He's A Rebel," "He's Sure The Boy I Love," and "Why Do Lover's Break Each Other's Hearts," would garner her legend status. She is featured in the 2013 Academy Award and Grammy winning documentary '20 Feet From Stardom,' chronicling the behind-the-scenes lives of background singers. Darlene's annual holiday performance of her classic "Christmas (Baby Please Come Home)" on Late Night With David Letterman became a holiday viewing staple.

The prolific Van Zandt creates a compelling production aesthetic onIntroducing Darlene Love, echoing the classic recording style of many early '60s pop standards on the forthcoming Columbia Records/Wicked Cool release, available everywhere on September 18.

Definitive Four Disc Anthology Brings Together 87 Non-LP and Compilation-Only Tracks including Landmark Hits "It's Not For Me to Say," "Chances Are" and "The Twelfth of Never"

Jul 28, 2015

NEW YORK, July 28, 2015 /PRNewswire/ -- Legacy Recordings, the catalog division of Sony Music Entertainment, and Columbia Records will celebrate the 80th birthday of legendary crooner Johnny Mathis with the release of Johnny Mathis: The Singles, a definitive four disc anthology, on September 25, 2015. Pre-order available here http://smarturl.it/mathis_singles

Born September 30, 1935, a then-teenaged Johnny Mathis signed with Columbia Records in 1956, first entering the Pop charts with his inaugural Columbia single, "Wonderful! Wonderful!" the following year. Peaking at #14, "Wonderful! Wonderful!" laid the foundation, and predicted the future, for one of the most remarkable careers in pop music history, leading to a string of singles successes which includes perennials like "It's Not For Me To Say," "Chances Are," "The Twelfth Of Never" and many others.

Johnny Mathis: The Singles brings together, for the first time in one anthology, every Johnny Mathis recording which was first issued for the singles market, as well as tracks released exclusively on compilations (1958's Johnny's Greatest Hits, considered the first "greatest hits" collection ever created by the music industry, 1959's More Johnny's Greatest Hits and 1981's The First 25 Years--The Silver Anniversary Album).

31 of the 87 tracks on Johnny Mathis: The Singles, are being released on CD for the very first time. The four-disc anthology compiles, for the very first time, every non-LP single side released for the label between 1956 and 1981.

"When over the course of a career you record as many songs as I have recorded, you tend to forget a few," said Johnny Mathis. "Revisiting this music was a complete surprise. I was thrilled beyond belief that some of the songs that I recorded specifically for single records, some of which had simply disappeared once they had been released, are now going to be heard again. Listening to this collection, not only was I amazed at how great it sounds, but I was being reminded of some songs I had totally forgotten. It is my greatest hope that my fans will share my enthusiasm."

Johnny Mathis is one of the longest-running artists on the Columbia Records label, with 17 million RIAA certified album and singles sales in the US alone. A sublime vocalist whose approach to pop music transcends passing fads and trends, Johnny Mathis has performed songs in an incredible variety of styles and categories -- from music composed for stage and film to golden era jazz standards, contemporary pop hits, and holiday music both sacred and secular -- assuring his reputation as one of the most enduring traditional pop vocalists in music history.

Perhaps best-known for his landmark singles (three of his recordings--"Chances Are," "It's Not For Me To Say," and "Misty"--have been inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame) Mathis was one of the very first musical artists to embrace the album concept and record fully-realized thematically and sonically coherent collections of songs. His 1958 release, Johnny's Greatest Hits inaugurated the ongoing "greatest hits" anthology phenomenon becoming one of the most popular albums of all time after spending an unprecedented 490 continuous weeks (almost ten years) on the BILLBOARD Top Albums Chart; 1959's Heavenly spent 295 consecutive weeks on the same chart. Johnny Mathis was given the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences in 2003.

Mathis had 18 Top 40 hits between 1957 and 1963 and 19 Top 40 albums between 1957 and 1978. He has earned 10 gold, 4 platinum and 2 multi-platinum awards from the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA)

Mathis was a star student athlete in San Francisco who sang weekends at a local jazz club. Columbia Records' George Avakian was in attendance during one performance, and famously wired back to the label office: "Have found phenomenal 19-year old boy who could go all the way. Send blank contracts." After his jazzy debut LP was largely ignored upon its release in 1956, Mathis began working closely with Columbia's vice-president and producer Mitch Miller to develop an unbeatable lush pop style, picking romantic ballads that made extensive use of his recognizable, vibrato-heavy croon.

During his time on Columbia, Mathis was essentially recording for two markets: the singles market and the albums market. While he would enjoy success in both realms, it was his non-LP singles that first introduced the world to his distinct gifts: in 1957, his first Columbia single "Wonderful! Wonderful!" peaked at No. 14; follow-up "It's Not For Me To Say" rose to No. 5, and "Chances Are" topped the charts.

Altogether, Mathis logged 18 singles on Billboard's Top 40 between 1957 and 1963 (and has seen 43 of his singles chart on Billboard Hot 100 from 1957 to 1981). After a tenure on his own Global label from 1963 to 1967 (initially distributed by Mercury and chronicled by Legacy in The Complete Global Albums Collection box set), Johnny returned to Columbia, where he records to this day.

Disc 1When Sunny Gets BlueWonderful! Wonderful! (#14)It's Not For Me To Say (#5)Warm And TenderChances Are (#1)The Twelfth Of Never (#9)Wild Is The Wind (#22)No Love (But Your Love) (#21)When I Am With YouCome To MeAll The TimeTeacher, Teacher (#21)Let It RainA Certain Smile (#14)Call MeStairway To The SeaYou Are BeautifulLet's LoveSomeone (#35)Very Much In LoveI Look At You (bonus track)The Flame Of Love (bonus track)

Disc 2Small World (#20)You Are Everything To MeThe Story Of Our LoveThe Best Of Everything (#62)CherieStarbrightAll Is WellHey LoveMy Love For You (#47)Oh That FeelingHow To Handle A WomanWhile You're YoungJennyYou Set My Heart To MusicShould I WaitLaurie, My LoveWasn't The Summer Short?There You AreChristmas EveMy Kind Of ChristmasSweet ThursdayOne LookUnaccustomed As I AmMariannaI'll Never Be Lonely Again

Disc 3That's The Way It IsGina (#6)I Love Her That's WhyWhat Will My Mary Say (#9)Quiet GirlEvery Step Of The WaySooner Or LaterAll The Sad Young MenI'll Search My HeartDon't Talk To MeLong Winter NightsAmong The First To KnowNight DreamsWhoever You Are, I Love YouFor All We KnowThe Last Time I Saw HerWherefore And WhyDarling LiliSign Of The DoveChristmas Is…I Was There

Disc 4Ten Times Forever MoreEvieThink About ThingsIf We Only Have LoveThis Way MarySometimesITake Good Care Of HerWalking TallTurn The Lights DownThe Very First Christmas DayChristmas In The City Of The AngelsThe Lord's PrayerWhen A Child Is BornNothing Between Us But LoveIt Doesn't Have To Hurt Every Time (bonus track)There! I've Said It Again (bonus track)Three Times A Lady (bonus track)The Way You Look Tonight (bonus track)

Jul 24, 2015 | Tenor Saxophonist James Brandon Lewis Releases Days Of FreeMan, A Tribute To His Hip-Hop Roots -- Album Available Now

"I didn't grow up a hip-hop head, but where I grew up in Buffalo, New York, on Freeman Street, the sound of 1990s hip-hop was ubiquitous," James Brandon Lewis says. "I decided to go back and explore that time through music."

Jul 24, 2015

NEW YORK, July 24, 2015 /PRNewswire/ -- Visionary composer and tenor saxophonist James Brandon Lewis's bravest, yet most palpable artistic feat, Days Of FreeMan, opens with a poignant and profound introductory monologue from a maternal sage. She says: "The best thing of living is living who you are. You can't be somebody else; you gotta be what God gave you to be and who you are. You look in the mirror and see yourself and say 'I'm James Brandon Lewis."' Next, bass and drums congeal around the sapphire melodic motif of "Brother 1976," recalling one of those jazzy jewel-like hooks from a 1990s Native Tongue hip-hop jam. The effect is like 1990s hip-hop's fascination with jazz being spit back by a prodigious jazz innovator. Welcome to Days Of FreeMan (OKeh) available July 24, 2015.

For his third album, James uses ideas from 1990s hip-hop to masterfully weave together threads of cultural identity, cross-generational identity, and personal reflection.

Days Of FreeMan is imaginatively organized in chapters with classic hip-hop style breaks and interludes functioning as chapter breathers. Like the cross cultural and generational mosaic on Freeman Street proper, the album invites the listener into many dialogues. It is a nod to 1990s hip-hop, and explores rhyme-scapes and the musical conventions of that golden age of hip-hop in a revolutionary way. The album also explores hip-hop as a culture through taking inspiration from the original four pillars of hip-hop: dance, rapping, graffiti, and DJ-ing.

The album also loosely functions as a memoir with an underlay of nostalgia for the carefree boyhood days of fly nicknames, basketball, and those first encounters with the transformative power of music. Adding to the power and emotionality of this thread on growing up, are pontifications on love, identity, and God peppered throughout the album, culled from informal conversations James recorded with his grandmother, Pearl Lewis.

James's immersive creative process to realize his vision for Days Of FreeMan include pouring over hip-hop documentaries for up to eight hours a day, and dissecting albums by KRS-One, Digable Planets, Pete Rock & CL Smooth, A Tribe Called Quest, Medeski, Martin & Wood, along with fearless jazz trumpeter Don Cherry's 1985 album Home Boy and Lauryn Hill's 1998 masterpiece the Miseducation Of Lauryn Hill.

How all of this preparation plays out musically is stunning. For years instrumentalists held fast to the lofty notion of "singing through the instrument," but on Days Of FreeMan, James aspires to MC through his tenor. The album's title track perfectly captures the clipped cadence of a master MC with speech-like phrases and a long flowing solo that conjures up a blazing freestyle battle rap session. "Black Ark" traces the legacy of hip-hop from the balmy and pioneering dub explorations of Lee "Scratch" Perry in Jamaica ("Black Ark" is the name of his famed studio) to the burgeoning sounds of hip-hop blaring out in the Bronx. On "Lament for JLew," in five vigorous minutes James ties together the dual lineages of classical music to hip-hop and classical music to rock using original classical-flavored motifs to illustrate the overlaps.

The second to last track of Days Of FreeMan is the political and timely "Unarmed With A Mic" and is a reminder of hip-hop's power as a form of protest music. On this track, James plays with seething sentimentality. The album concludes with "Epilogue," a reprise of the infectious melody of the opening track "Brother 1976."

On the album, James is accompanied by drummer Rudy Royston. Both took the weighty undertaking of album deeply, researching 1990s hip-hop jams for inspiration and vision. Their attention to the vocabulary of the era James sought to explore, and their panoramic musicality and sympathetic musical skills, match James's artistic ideal to authentically and thoroughly fuse genres and cultures without pandering to trends in jazz-groove records. The record also features a guest spot from the gifted freestyle rapper Supernatural on the track "Days Of FreeMan."

Days of FreeMan is one of James Brandon Lewis's most ambitious works and his most accessible. Reflecting on this intriguing duality he says: "The artist is charged with taking creative risks, but the universe lined up this time and I was able to connect with my audience conversationally."

About James Brandon LewisJames Brandon Lewis is one of the modern titans of the tenor sax. Hailed by Ebony Magazine as one of "7 Young Players to Watch," James has shared stages with such icons as Benny Golson, Geri Allen, Wallace Roney, Grammy® Award-winning singer Dorinda Clark Cole, and the late "Queen of Gospel Music," Albertina Walker. In bold contrast, James has also worked with such intrepid artists as Weather Report bassist Alphonso Johnson, William Parker, Gerald Cleaver, Charles Gayle, Ed Shuller, Kirk Knuffke, Jason Hwang, Marilyn Crispell, Ken Filiano, Cooper Moore, Darius Jones, Eri Yamamoto, Federico Ughi, Kenny Wessel, Marvin "Bugalu" Smith, and Sabir Mateen. In addition, he has collaborated with the dance company CircuitDebris under the direction of Mersiha Mesihovic. James attended Howard University and holds an MFA from California Institute of the Arts.

Currently, James resides in New York City where he actively gigs as a sideman and leads his own ensembles. In NYC, he is a co-founder of "Heroes Are Gang Leaders" with poet Thomas Sayers Ellis—a collective of poets and musicians—and he is a member of the collective "Dark Matter," a conceptual musical collaboration exploring that which is invisible but is detected by it's gravitational effects. Outside NYC, James is an active national and international touring artist. Some career highlights are playing such esteemed festivals as Winter Jazz Festival/OKeh Records showcase with William Parker and Gerald Cleaver; The Eric Dolphy Festival with an ensemble featuring Grachan Moncur III, Richard Davis, Andrew Cyrille, Angelica Sanchez, Ted Daniel, and Alfred Patterson; and Princeton University as part of Fred Ho's "Journey to the West," an interdisciplinary dance and music project.

Open Now

Jul 16, 2015

NEW YORK, July 16, 2015 /PRNewswire/ -- Legacy Recordings, the catalog division of Sony Music Entertainment, is opening up the SME archives to access 125 years-worth of creative artwork, photos and graphics to serve as source material for the most exciting line of historic record label merchandise to ever be made available to the public.

In addition to its current offerings, Shop.LegacyReocrdings.com will soon be making available a variety of fashionably branded home decor products including decorative pillow cases, sheets, shower curtains, duvets and fleece blankets.